Linyphiidae
by myrmidryad
Summary: Hitomi Hiragana is a spider user. When she is teamed up with Shino Aburame on a mission, strange feelings arise. ShinoXOC rated T to be safe
1. Chapter 1

Linyphiidae

Linyphiidae. More commonly known as a money spider. There were hundreds of species, most of them growing to no more than half a centimetre. This one was a dark brown with a triangular patch of dark yellow on its large abdomen.

The tiny arachnid crawled over her knuckle, struggling to clamber over the tiny hairs on the back of her index finger. Hitomi smiled at it, admiring its courage and determination. Not that the tiny being felt emotions like that, but it understood that this was an obstacle that had to be overcome. It wanted to find a quiet, safe place to build a web. Then, though it had no concept of the future, it would sit patiently until an insect of microscopic proportions flew into its trap. Then it would eat. Of course, it might be years before an insect flew into its web, but this arachnid could live for almost three years without a single meal. This one was a male, and as such would also go out in search of a mate when the time was right. It would then be eaten for its trouble. Life was cruel.

Hitomi giggled and gently placed the middle finger of her other hand in the spider's path. He barely seemed to notice as he changed direction and avoided it. She sighed and made him walk up onto the finger so that she could tilt it and watch as he spiralled off the digit, suspended by a length of silk.

The grass Hitomi was kneeling on was wet with early-morning dew, the giant orbs of water glittering in the dawn light. The dew also showed up the myriad of spider webs hanging between the blades of grass. There were hundreds, maybe thousands. The dew made them shimmer like diamonds. Rich ladies would pay millions to go out decked in dew-covered spider silk, were it possible.

Hitomi watched as her spider tentatively reached out with the two legs at the front of his body and clutched at a shiny blade of grass, his hair-covered legs perfectly adapted to holding onto the gently swaying stem. He lowered himself completely and at a thought from Hitomi, released the thread connecting him to her finger.

Quickly and easily, he shimmied down to the cold, dark world just beneath the view of humans and settled down to wait for nightfall, when he would spin his web.

Standing up, Hitomi sighed happily. The whole field looked like a picture out of a story. No one could disturb it. Her family owned it, and they kept it in perfect conditions for their signature creature – spiders.

The Hiragana clan used spiders. And the spiders used them. Like the Aburame used bugs, and the Kamizuru used bees, the Hiragana used spiders. Though nowhere near as famous as the Aburame, or as obscure and forgotten as the Kamizuru, the Hiragana slotted comfortably in between fame and obscurity.

Hitomi stood up carefully and stretched, relieving her muscles. Looking around carefully, she stepped backwards onto the stepping stone. There was a path of five of them, leading halfway into the field from the gate. Though the spiders residing in the field and the trees surrounding it would try and move out of the way of Hiragana footsteps, it was better that they didn't have to, and so they kept off the giant flat stones the clan used to walk into the peaceful meadow.

Hitomi sat back on the cool stone and stretched her toes out, brushing the dew and getting them wet. She smiled and sighed happily. The meadow was a part of the Hiragana compound, so no outsiders were allowed in unless invited. Only here could she be herself. When outside the compound, Hitomi was covered from head to foot in her family's custom manner.

The material was black, sort of shimmery, and almost see-through, like opaque black tights, but made of softer stuff. The garment clung tightly to her frame, but flared out from her arms, so that if she stood with her arms outstretched, it would look like she had makeshift wings. There was a cowl-like hood, which could be worn up over the head, or down around the neck and shoulders. Skin-tight leggings covered her legs, though there was a makeshift mini skirt at the front that fell down to her ankles at the back. It kept her warm when it was cold, and cool when it was hot.

Though she had never seen what the Aburame looked like under their coats and glasses, she suspected they covered themselves up for the same reasons the Hiragana did – the scars and holes.

Hitomi's spiders lived _inside_ her body, _under_ her skin, and when she called on them to fight, they didn't just magically appear – they had to tear through her skin.

Some holes she kept permanently open, so she didn't have to tear new ones each time she needed her spiders, but in battle situations, when she needed lots of spiders quickly, they had to rip large gaps in her skin to allow enough of them to come out. One type of spider that inhabited her had a chemical in its silk that it used to heal the gaping wounds left, and it made the scars wide and silvery. Quite pretty, in their own way, though she didn't like to display them. She was enough of a freak already, without drawing attention to the painful way her spiders escaped her skin.

There were wide scars like that all over her body, covering her legs, torso, arms and neck. She tilted her leg slightly, so the early morning sun caught a particularly wide scar and made it shimmer like snake scales, or like the mother-of-pearl sea shell that Hitomi's mother kept in the kitchen, it's many colours looking like spilt oil. Her scars didn't have many colours, but they caught the light in the same way.

Her palms were the only part of her that didn't scar, which was useful, as several of her speciality jutsu involved shooting thick spider silk threads from holes in her palms. For some reason, it never hurt when the skin ripped open either. No one in the Hiragana clan knew why.

"Hitomi!"

Said girl jerked her head up and winced. She would be late again if she didn't hurry, and her mother had already received two letters from Kazuki-sensei berating her poor time keeping abilities.

"Hitomi!"

"Coming!" She yelled back, leaping easily from stone to stone, her pink pyjama bottoms tied up around her thighs so as not to get in the way. Her mother was waiting for her at the gate to the family compound, her hands and apron covered in flour and her dark brown hair coming loose from its knot already. Hitomi got her beautiful eyes from her mother – it wasn't that they were an unusual colour; just ordinary black, but they were an interesting shape. Slanted, but wide, not thin, and so large she would have looked perpetually surprised were it not for the convenient slant that instead made her look like a runaway model. Or the head of a runaway model anyway.

She got her hair, a nest of thick black dreadlocks, and her thin and wiry figure from her father. Her kekkei genkai was also from her father, who had married outside the clan. Hitomi's younger sister, Satsu, also had her father's hair and figure, but not the kekkei genkai. Her mother was curved and strong, and she gasped when she saw her daughter, her eyebrows plummeting down to form a 'V'.

"You're not even dressed yet!" She scolded, smacking Hitomi round the back of her head. "Hurry up! I don't want any more letters home, do you hear me?"

"Hai, hai, I hear you." Hitomi muttered as she ran up the polished wooden stairs, slipping and stumbling in her haste.

"And don't you take that tone with me!" Her mother called after her in a warning voice.

"Whatever," Hitomi rolled her eyes. Her mother was always grouchy when her father was away on missions. It wasn't even anything big – just escorting a feudal lord's son back to his home in another region of the Fire Country.

Still, she pushed her mind away from thoughts like that. Her aunt, her father's sister, had once gone on what had seemed like a small enough mission at the time, but had ended up getting her and two of the other ninja on her team killed. Rumours had circulated about her reliability as a ninja, and her father had flown into a fury, beaten two men to pulps, and been banned from missions for three months.

Rumours had always circulated about the reliability of her clan, ever since Kidomaru, a former member of the branch of their clan in the Sound Country, had turned traitor and had become a ninja for Orochimaru. Even though the Hiragana clan had concentrated their efforts and forcefully removed Kidomaru's spiders, the cursed seal Orochimaru had given him made up for the loss, and Kidomaru hadn't died.

She was thinking about it again. Hitomi shook her head as she struggled into her uniform and pulled on her red headband. Her forehead protector plaque was nailed to her left sandal. Attaching her ninja pouch to her thigh as she ran out of the house, she snagged a couple of her mother's freshly baked rolls on the way.

Even though she knew she was going to be late, she ran anyway, stuffing great chunks of warm bread in her mouth as fast as she could. Her teammates, Akihiro and Masaki would sigh and laugh and their sensei, Kazuki, would frown and make her do extra laps or exercises.

She sped around a corner, almost upsetting a vendor selling pancakes, and ran full pelt towards their team's training grounds.

Akihiro and Masaki were standing under the tree, already stretching and warming up. Kazuki-sensei was sitting in the branches above them, his moss-green hair tied back around his sharp brown face. He looked like he was in the middle of a transformation into the tree he was sitting in.

"You're late, Hitomi." His voice was stern and he sprung from the tree with graceful ease. "Again."

"I'm sorry, sensei." Hitomi hung her head. "I'll do fifty extra laps to make up for wasting your time." This kind of self-inflicted punishment usually worked with Kazuki-sensei, but for some reason, her words made him frown harder.

"That's good, Hitomi," He said, "But your laps will have to wait until later. We've been called to the Hokage's office for an important mission briefing." The lines in his forehead deepened. "I only hope you have not made us too late."

Hitomi gulped. It was not wise to keep the Hokage waiting for any reason. She had a real temper. "Shall we run?" She suggested, her voice higher than usual. Tsunade-sama made her nervous.

"Yeah!" Akihiro grinned, the tattooed skin around his eyes wrinkling in excitement. "Let's run! Bet I can beat you, Masaki!"

"Bet you can't." The taller boy shifted into a running position and turned his dark eyes to Kazuki. "Can we?"

Their sensei sighed and waved a hand. "A race then. Last one there has to explain to Tsunade-sama why we're late." The air practically buzzed with competition. "On my mark, get set…"

"Go!" Hitomi yelled, dashing off as fast as she could. No way was she going to explain to Tsunade-sama why they were late.

"Hey!" Akihiro ran after her.

"That's cheating!" Masaki shouted indignantly.

"Don't care!" Hitomi flung a couple of near-invisible sticky threads over her shoulder. Those would catch Akihiro, who was her biggest competition – his speed was unrivalled in their graduation year.

She stifled a laugh as she heard a strangles yell of surprise, then a roar of anger. That took care of Akihiro. Which left Kazuki and Masaki…

"That was a dirty trick."

"YAH!" Hitomi shrieked as the dark eyed boy appeared alongside her, seemingly gliding above the pavement. "Don't DO that!" She gasped, swerving round a woman and her two babies. "Do you want me to have a heart attack?"

"Well since you've already so kindly taken Akihiro out of the race, losing you to a heart disease would narrow it down to Kazuki-sensei and me, and I'm reasonably confident that I could win."

"Don't be so sure." The green-haired sensei dashed past them, and Hitomi growled.

"Damn. You lost me my lead, Masaki!"

"You lost your own lead, Hitomi. Now…_earth manipulation no jutsu_!"

Hitomi just had time to widen her eyes in outrage before the ground beneath her became like liquid, and she sank down up to her waist before it hardened and left her stranded in the middle of the road.

She heard Masaki's silvery laugh as he widened the distance between them and she snarled. "Fine! If that's the way you want to play…" She wrenched her hands up and formed seals as quickly as she could. "_Spider silk summoning no jutsu_!" She directed her palms forward and cackled evilly as two thick ropes of sticky spider silk burst from the holes hurriedly ripped in her palms and shot forward to where Masaki was running away, catching him and wrapping him up in a tight cocoon.

She could hear his yells of anger from her position in the middle of the road, and hissed with glee. "Gotcha!" She screamed. "Now then…" She concentrated, and the spiders inside her trickled out to widen the space between her body and the walls imprisoning her. "Ahhhh…" She sighed as she levered herself out of the hole and stood up.

Suddenly, the cries of a child reached her ears. She turned her head, and her eyes fell upon a young girl, screaming in abject terror as a large brown spider ran towards her. "Get it away!" She shrieked, tears starting in her eyes. "Get it away!"

"Eww!" A pre-teen boy exclaimed. "Gross! Look at all those spiders! Quick, hand me that stick so I can squish 'em!"

"No. baby!" A mother yelled at her toddler as it reached forward to pick up a bright yellow arachnid by its feet. "Don't touch it!"

"It's probably crawling with diseases!" Agreed the woman next to her, picking up her own baby and holding her close.

Hitomi felt the tears rise in her throat, but didn't let them rise to her eyes. Instead, she stretched out her hands, and the spiders all ran back towards her, clambering up her legs and running up her clothes to nestle in her hair. She hugged herself tightly, and her spiders rested on her arms, making it look like she was hugging them. The people in the street stared at her, their faces twisted into various expressions – shock, disgust…fear.

"Hiragana…" She heard someone mutter, and some of the stares turned to distrustful.

Hitomi clenched her jaw and began to walk, fixing her eyes on the road, refusing to show her hurt. She would not run. It was hard to believe that just seconds ago she had been embroiled in a playful battle with one of her team mates.

Said team mate was still firmly cocooned, and she felt his stare on her back, burning her as she walked away, only breaking into a run once she was past the glares and accusing fingers being pointed at her.

This always happened. The nest of locks and her unique clothing marked her for what she was considered to be – a freak. No, not only a freak. A traitorous freak. It hurt more than she would ever let on.

Of all the reactions, the young girl's hurt Hitomi the most. What was the child afraid of? She had asked Akihiro why people were scared of spiders, and he had told her that sometimes it was because of the way they moved – so fast, and with so many legs, or because of the way they looked – creepy, apparently.

Hitomi didn't think spiders looked creepy. She thought they were beautiful. Perfect in every way for doing what they were meant to do. Life was so simple for a spider – catch prey, eat, mate…just live, in such simplicity it was almost mind-blowing. Their brains were so small they didn't comprehend anything beyond the simple needs to survive.

With difficulty, she pushed her confusion and hurt away and concentrated on the race. Akihiro and Masaki were delayed, which left just her and Kazuki. She was not as confident as Masaki, and didn't trust enough in her own abilities to believe that she could get to the Hokage's fortress before him. Plus, he'd already gone on ahead.

She ran anyway, just in case Akihiro or Masaki freed themselves from her silk quicker than anticipated. So she arrived in the waiting room outside the Hokage's office to find Kazuki-sensei already waiting, standing in the corner near the window where a few branches of a weed of some sort had inched their way inside.

He nodded serenely to her, a trace of a smile on his thin lips. She smirked back. They both knew that she was nervous around Tsunade-sama and would never allow herself to be last in the race. Next to arrive was Akihiro, mere inches ahead of Masaki, who cursed under his breath.

"You'll be explaining our lateness to Tsunade-sama then." Kazuki-sensei gave Masaki a smug smile and gestured to the paper screen that separated the waiting room from the Hokage's office.

Sighing, and bracing himself for a verbal (and quite possibly physical) attack, the tall boy knocked on the wooden frame.

"Come in!" Tsunade-sama didn't sound angry, so maybe there was still hope that Masaki would get away with all limbs intact. Hitomi stifled a giggle as she saw the usually stoic Masaki push the screen aside with an audible gulp.

The woman behind the desk was almost hidden by paperwork, but her beauty still held the same shocking effect on Hitomi as it had the first time she'd seen the Fifth. Thick pale yellow hair hung over a smooth, unlined face, marked with a purple diamond in the centre of her forehead. Full pink lips and clear amber eyes completed the picture of a woman who looked like she should be strolling up and down a catwalk, not sitting behind a desk.

"You're late." She stated, her eyes on a piece of paper she held in manicured fingers.

"And Masaki will explain why." Kazuki-sensei prompted, smirking at the glare he received in return.

"I don't care." Tsunade-sama stopped him. "The other teams are also late, so you're actually the first to arrive."

"Oh." Kazuki-sensei's non-existent eyebrows rose and he leaned back against the wall. "Well that's alright then."

"Alright?" Tsunade snapped, her eyes snapping up to Kazuki's. "Alright? I ask three teams to be here by seven – it's seven-thirty, and only one team has arrived!"

"Make that two." A cocky voice sounded from the doorway, and Hitomi inwardly groaned. It was Jiro, a boy who had been in her class at the Academy. He had been the bane of her existence, always screaming at imaginary spiders and blaming everything on her. He had succeeded in excluding her from all the playground games by telling everyone that her clan was full of traitors and that she shouldn't be allowed to be a ninja in the first place.

"Team Yuudai, present." Jiro's sensei said in a monotone. The thick-set man looked like he had just walked off a building site – in brute strength he outstripped everybody. Jiro's team mates stood either side of him – dark, sarcastic Taro and blonde brainiac Toshiko.

"Well look who it is." Jiro crowed, catching sight of Hitomi, who was suppressing the urge to cocoon him.

"Hello, Jiro-san." She growled, clenching her fists. The boy was pissing her off already.

"Y'know," Jiro smirked, "I heard of this riot in town today as we were walking past…something about the _Hiragana_, and filthy _spiders_, of all things." He looked at her with innocently wide eyes. "Anything to do with you, by any chance?"

"Shut up, Jiro." Taro punched Jiro's head. "Stop being so rude and childish." He glared down at his smaller team mate with disdain. "What makes you think you can just start mouthing off to a former classmate like that? We haven't even been briefed yet."

Jiro glared at Taro, but obligingly kept his mouth closed. Hitomi sighed and shot a grateful glance at Taro, who just gazed back coldly before focusing his eyes on Tsunade-sama. Shocked, Hitomi looked at Toshiko for reassurance that she hadn't done anything wrong. The blonde girl pushed her glasses up her nose and smiled sympathetically.

"One more team." Tsunade-sama rubbed her temple, consoling herself. "One more team, and then you can explode. Just the last team now…"

"Tsunade-sama." The screen door slid open, revealing Kurenai-sensei and her three students. "We're so sorry we're late." She apologised. "Hiashi kept Hinata back for some obscure reason." A scowl marred her usually unlined forehead.

Hitomi looked the team up and down. She knew of the Hyuuga clan – who didn't? And she had heard of the heir to the main branch. Hinata's pale lavender eyes were turned to the floor, a shy smile on her pretty face.

The boy next to her was from the Inuzuka clan. Hitomi knew because of the two red fangs tattooed on his cheeks, and the small white dog perched on his fur-lined hood. The hairs on the back of her arms stood up. She didn't like dogs. Nasty, slobbery, messy creatures, always disturbing the natural peace and quiet. Just like their masters. Few people in Konoha owned dogs except for the Inuzuka clan. It made her nervous to be around them – they were famous for their wolf-like tempers that could snap without a moment's notice. This Inuzuka wore a rakish grin, showing off his unnaturally long and sharp canines.

The last boy was Aburame. His dark glasses and long trench coat advertised the fact. Hitomi couldn't stop her mouth dropping open. She had not expected an Aburame to be one of the students involved in this mission. There existed an _understanding_ of sorts between the bug clan and the Hiragana. They, of all the other clans, understood how the other felt when someone swatted a spider or a bug without a second thought, how it felt to be given stares in the street, and whispers behind your back. They understood each other, though not to the point where they were on a first name basis. It was more a matter of a sympathetic glance across a crowded room when a _baka_ like Jiro was asking stupid questions. She was also shocked at how _tall_ he was! He must be around six foot! Maybe taller! And that wasn't even counting the six to seven inches of spiky black hair.

Hitomi's spiders sensed the bug user, and there was a furious tickling under her skin as spiders of all shapes and sizes raced to the exit holes in case of a confrontation. The boy's head snapped around and his eyes appeared to meet hers (she couldn't be entirely sure because of his typical sunglasses). She jumped, and her eyes narrowed instinctively, her fingers flaring out and a small army of spiders crawling along them, dangling on invisible threads of silk. The boy's face was almost entirely covered by his high collar and dark glasses, but he took a step back and raised his hands. The Hiragana had always been more hasty than the Aburame, who were, as a clan, more inclined to be cautious than jumpy.

The others watched the small confrontation, and the smile on Jiro's face widened as he realised what the tall boy was. It disappeared, however, when Taro shot him a dark warning glance, and was replaced by a sulky look. Hitomi didn't notice. She called her spiders back into the safety of her body, where she gave them a warm flare of her chakra to reassure them.

Tsunade-sama had had enough by now, and leapt to her feet, fury on her face. "Do you know how long I've been waiting for you?" She yelled.

"Thirty-three minutes, twenty-eight seconds." Toshiko said immediately.

"Exactly!" The Hokage cried, not breaking her stride. "Thirty-three minutes and twenty-eight seconds! It's unacceptable!"

"Now thirty-one seconds." Toshiko informed her quietly. Tsunade glanced at her.

"Maarai Toshiko, I presume?"

"Yes, Lady Hokage." Toshiko lowered her eyes.

"Hmmm." Tsunade nodded, a small smile appearing on her lips. "Well then. As smart as they come." She turned to the others and snorted. "More than I can say for the rest of you! But you've wasted enough time…Shizune!"

"Yes, Tsunade-sama?" The attendant appeared at the door, Ton Ton in her arms.

"Where's the mission document for these idiots?" Tsunade waved a hand derisively at the assembly. Hitomi winced. Her spiders scurried under her skin, sensing her nerves. The Aburame boy glanced at her again and she gave him a half-smile and a shrug. He turned back to Tsunade-sama, no expression on his face.

"On your desk," Shizune smiled. "On the top of that small pile to your left."

"Ah." Tsunade swept a piece of paper into her hands. "Thank…" She frowned. "This is a document on the measurements of cow dung for the last five years."

"Ah, not that pile," Shizune laughed weakly. "That other pile to your left."

"Right." Tsunade pulled a different piece of paper into her hands. "Thank you."

Shizune smiled and left, sliding the screen door shut behind her.

"Now then." The Hokage sat down behind her desk again. "The mission I've assigned you is fairly simple, but requires you to spread out over a large distance, which is why there are so many of you.

"The aim of the mission is to find a certain animal." She grimaced. "I'll get to the point. The hospital has run out of anti-venom for a very toxic snake – the forest adder. You need to find two forest adders, a male and a female, and bring them back to Konoha for the hospital to breed, so they'll have a permanent store of anti-venom.

"Now the forest adder is lightning quick, very well camouflaged, and deadly poisonous. You will be split into four teams, and each team will be given a toxin to sedate the adder and a small sample of the anti-venom, in case you get bitten. I'll warn you though," She narrowed her eyes. "Those four bottles are the last of the anti-venom we have. You have three days to complete the mission, and if anyone from Konoha gets bitten by a forest adder in that time, they will die. The venom takes only ten minutes to kill.

"I've split the teams, and it'll go like this." She glanced down at her paper. "The three senseis will compose one team. Akihiro, Hinata and Taro will compose the next. Kiba, Toshiko and Masaki will be team three, and Jiro, Hitomi and Shino will be team four. Team leaders are Kurenai, Taro, Masaki and Shino, mission leader is Kurenai."

Hitomi closed her eyes and counted to ten. Slowly. Jiro was on her team. She would have to put up with the obnoxious little _baka_ for three whole days while searching for a snake that could kill her. The joy was almost overwhelming. Ha ha.

"You should have started half an hour ago." Tsunade-sama glared at them. "So there's no time to lose. Get going!"

The newly made up teams left the office. Hitomi rolled her eyes when she heard that Jiro was the one complaining.

"Swap with me, Toshiko-chan, please!" He begged. "For me? I'll get you that encyclopaedia you wanted for your birthday!"

"My birthday was last month," She reminded him, "And I think this mission will do you good, Jiro-kun." He groaned theoretically and turned to Taro.

"No." The dark boy intoned before Jiro could speak. "Toshiko's right. This will do you good."

"Come on!" Jiro pleaded. "Don't leave me out there with those freaks!"

Hitomi narrowed her eyes at him, and Shino's jacket creased as he clenched his fists in his pockets. Taro didn't miss their reaction, and nodded to Jiro.

"'Those freaks', as you so aptly named them, are your new team mates, Jiro. Get over it." He allowed himself a small smirk and turned to talk to Hinata, who stuttered.

Jiro folded his arms and scowled. "Tosser!" He yelled at Taro's retreating back. Taro's response was to flip him off over his shoulder. Hitomi giggled. Jiro turned on her angrily. "I can't believe I'm on _your_ team!"

"The feeling's mutual." She snapped back, enjoying Jiro's look of surprise. When they had been students at the Academy, she had taken all his insults with lowered eyes and trembling lips, but she was different now. She was stronger, and if Jiro continued to irritate her, he would find out how strong.

Shino shook his head and walked away. Jiro stuck his tongue out at his back, and Hitomi rolled her eyes at him and jogged to catch up with her new team leader.

Outside, they dispensed the short-range radios and set out for the forest. Shino led the way for team four, and Hitomi followed him readily enough. She was more of a follower than a leader. She had noticed that each of the other teams had a medic-nin on them. Kazuki-sensei was an accomplished medic, Hinata; Hitomi knew was good with medicines and ointments. Toshiko knew everything about everything, and Hitomi realised with surprise that Jiro must be the medic for their team, since she could tell with her spider-senses that Shino wasn't. He didn't smell of the hospital, while Jiro did.

He noticed her curious glance and glared at her. "What?"

"You never seemed interested in medicine." She remarked curiously. Jiro flushed.

"Well, things change."

"Hm." Hitomi looked at him appraisingly. Had he changed for real?

"Well, some things." Jiro smirked. "You're the same freak you were at school."

Nope. No change for Jiro.

"Quiet."

Hitomi started. Shino's voice was deeper than she'd thought it would be. Only natural for such a tall guy, she supposed.

"We'll stop here for a minute to verify each other's positions." He said, dropping down through the branches they had been leaping along and landing quietly on the forest floor.

"But we know where we are." Jiro said stupidly. "We can see each other!"

"He means the other teams' positions, _baka_!" Hitomi hissed, falling next to Shino. Jiro huffed and crossed his arms.

Static blared into Hitomi's ear and she winced.

"…_this is team two…does anyone read us?…"_

Shino pressed a finger to his ear. "Team four read you loud and clear, team two."

"…_team one coming in…"_

"…_aff! Aff!...Akamaru! Get off the line! Yo, Kiba an' team three online!…"_

Shino shook his head. "Keep Akamaru off the frequency, Kiba." He said, a hint of amusement beneath the professional demeanour. "Team four waiting for orders from team one."

"…_this is team one. All teams state your co ordinates…"_

Shino glanced at Hitomi, who nodded and rattled off their position. "Nineteen eight, eighty-two three." She had been marked as trailblazer, and was quite good at it, if she did say so herself.

"…_all teams spread out and search in the co ordinate grids I give you…" _Kurenai's voice buzzed over the earphone in Hitomi's ear. _"…team four, nineteen eighty-two and eighty-three…"_

Hitomi frowned. It was a large area, though since they were all covering the same distance, and there were four teams, the likelihood of catching a pair of forest adders was reasonable. If you knew what to look for.

"Co ordinates received." Shino spoke into his mic. "Team four out." He turned to Hitomi. "If we make our way to nineteen five, eighty-three zero, we can spread out our squads into each square."

"Excuse me?" Jiro interrupted, looking at Shino with a slightly crazed look in his eyes. "Squads? There are just us three!"

"_Baka_." Hitomi gave Jiro a withering look. "You forget that easy?"

"You mean your spiders are your squads?" Jiro made a face. "That's gross!"

Hitomi was about to retort when Shino spoke. "Let's get moving. We're wasting time." He jumped up into the trees.

"Yeah." Hitomi shot silk ropes and swung herself up beside him. He looked at her with what could have been surprise.

"That's interesting."

She smiled.

"More like disgusting." Jiro jumped up beside them. "Yeurgh. We moving or what?"

Shino looked down at the branch he was crouched on for a moment, and Hitomi bit her lip to stop from giggling as she realised he was probably counting to ten. Slowly.

"Yes." He said finally. "Let's get moving."

They made it to nineteen five, eighty-three zero swiftly, and stopped at Shino's command, dropping silently to the mossy forest floor.

Hitomi looked around in awe. It was cool and wet, and she could hear water dripping nearby. It smelt of wet earth and plant sap, and everything was green and dripping. She gazed up at the heavy green leaves of the tall trees above them and breathed in, inhaling the myriad scents that surrounded her. "Ahhhhhhhh…" She sighed with blissfully droopy eyes. "This is beautiful. I've never been this deep into the forest before. I thought it was all dry and branchy like the woods outside Konoha."

"This is a part of the forest where it rains often." Shino informed her, his eyes to the south. He sounded like he was reciting from a textbook. "Though there is also a lot of sun. The weather here is very changeable, and is prone to sudden thunder-storms. There are a lot of butterflies." He noted, his head swerving at some inner signal.

Jiro frowned. "I don't see any butterflies."

"I do." Hitomi breathed. "Look, Jiro, here…" She pointed to a tree trunk covered in moss next to her. Jiro leaned forward and squinted.

"I don't see anything but moss." He said, frustrated. "Where is it?"

"Here." Shino held out his finger, and as if by magic, a piece of the moss flapped away from the tree to balance delicately on the Aburame's pale skin. Jiro gasped in wonder.

The butterfly's miniscule wing scales were the exactly same deep green as the moss, and its shimmering wings produced the illusion that they were lumped and slightly hairy, just like the moss. Hitomi's eyes were confused for a moment, and it felt like her mind was twisting around in a loop, but then her vision adapted and she saw the genius mirage the wings projected.

"That is so freaky." Jiro declared in an awed voice. "Whoa. That is just…unreal. Seriously. Damn, Yuji would kill to see this…lemme have it for a sec." He held out his hand to Shino, his eyes still fixed on the butterfly, gently opening and closing its wings on Shino's finger.

"What do you want it for?" The taller boy asked in his deep voice, not concealing his suspicion.

Jiro looked at his in surprise. "Well I can't get it back to my little brother _alive_ can I?"

Shino looked at him for a long moment before answering. "No. You cannot." With that, he lifted his finger and the butterfly flapped its paper-thin wings and flew high, disappearing in the surrounding greenery.

Jiro was gobsmacked. "What the hell?" He spluttered finally. "What did you do that for?"

Shino stared at him. "If you can't figure it out, I'm not going to tell you." He turned away and began to walk towards a small mossy rock, which he sat down on, facing away from them.

Hitomi glared at Jiro in disgust. "Are you completely retarded," She spat, "Or is this an act to impress us?"

"What?" Jiro threw up his hands. "What did I do wrong?"

"Think about it, you idiot." She said witheringly. "Shino is Aburame. You know – he can communicate with all bugs and stuff? They live inside him? Ring any bells?"

"I know." Jiro growled.

"Well then," Hitomi narrowed her eyes to slits, "Don't you think it would be better to not try and kill any insects while you're here? Spiders too," She added with a warning glare. "I catch you doing anything nasty, I cocoon you and leave you in a spider nest for the whole mission." She then turned on her heel and stalked over to Shino, sitting on his rock with her back to his.

"Ooh that felt so good." She crowed under her breath. Shino moved his head a fraction; the only sign he'd heard her. "I take it you'll do nineteen eighty-three, I do nineteen eighty-two?"

"That would be the easiest course of action." He nodded calmly. "If you find a forest adder…"

"I'll tell you." She nodded, closing her eyes and crossing her legs tailor-style. "Jiro!" She called, as a last thought. Sensing the boy's sullen attention, she gave him an order. "Don't disturb us unless it's an emergency." So saying, she called to her spiders, sensing Shino doing the same with his bugs.

Jiro gasped in horror and took a step back as his two team mates suddenly seemed to erupt with dark crawling shapes. Hitomi's spiders were larger than Shino's bugs, and Shino's bugs flew, hovering around him in flame-like shapes. The owners of both types of creepy-crawly were careful to keep them away from each other – indeed, Shino and Hitomi wouldn't even allow their backs to touch in case they lost concentration.

Hitomi didn't know how Shino's bug methods worked, but her way was to spread her spiders out a little way till they found a sufficient number of wild spiders, who would also fall under her spell and begin searching for a forest adder. Surely it couldn't take too long?

Wrong.

Hitomi had underestimated the scale of the area she was searching, and spiders were small, and most preferred to hide and build traps for their prey rather than actively hunt them. Luckily, there were a few species of wild spiders in the forest that did hunt their prey actively, and Hitomi concentrated on them, as they also had the best eyesight, most of them having actual colour vision.

Searching still took a long time, however, and Hitomi was only two thirds through her area when she felt something hit her shoulder. Her concentration snapped and she glanced up in surprise. "Jiro? Was that you?"

"Yeah." The boy was standing on a small rock, above ground level, eyeing the forest floor warily. "It's going to get dark soon, so we should set up camp, preferably somewhere less wet."

Hitomi frowned. "What did you throw at me?"

"A stick."

"Why not just nudge me?"

Jiro's eyebrows leapt to his hairline. "Have you seen yourself?" He asked incredulously. "You look like something out of a nightmare!"

Hitomi looked down at herself. Well…she did have a light covering of arachnids, especially in her lap, but did she really look that horrifying?

"It looked like you were dead." Jiro whispered, his face pale. "And they were eating you." Hitomi would have laughed, had he not looked so freaked out.

"Hn." She turned her head to look at Shino. "Don't wake him yet." She began to call her spiders back.

"Why not?" Jiro looked confused.

"Cos if you or I wake him up now with all my spiders around, his bugs might go on the offensive, and my spiders would attack, and we'd have a mini-war on our hands."

"Right." Jiro gulped audibly. "Forget I asked."

Hitomi made sure that all her spiders were safe inside her before she moved (a few had been killed or eaten, but deaths were inevitable). She levered herself slowly off the rock and stretched, her muscles and bones groaning. "You wake him up." She nodded to Jiro. "He might freak cos of my spiders."

"No freakin' way!" Jiro hissed, his eyes wide. "Are you kidding me? He's covered in bugs! He looks almost as bad as you did! You do it."

"Thanks." Hitomi said dryly. "Fine then, make yourself useful and see if you can find us a place to camp for tonight."

"You got it." Jiro was gone in a flash, leaving a slightly amused Hitomi to ponder on the change that had come over him.

Maybe it's because he saw what's really inside of me, she mused as she moved cautiously in front of Shino. Bugs buzzed around him and over him in a patchy carpet. His head was sunk into his chest, and she assumed his eyes were closed and he was completely absorbed into the world of his bugs. She imagined they were harder to deal with than spiders – there was such a massive variety.

"Uh…Shino?" She tried hesitantly. "Yo, Shino. Wake up!" The Aburame boy didn't react and Hitomi bit her lip. She didn't really want to touch him; not with all his bugs there. They might freak out, and that could be disastrous.

"Okay then…" She let a small spider drop from her hand to the rock near Shino's feet. "Let's see if this works…" At her bidding, the spider made its way cautiously up to a line of Shino's bugs and waved its front legs at them to get their attention.

It happened so fast that Hitomi didn't have time to react.

Her spider was killed so quickly it didn't even realise what had happened, and Hitomi found herself pressed to the wet moss on the forest floor, a kunai at her throat and Shino's weight on her body.

Adrenaline raced through her veins and her spiders reacted, ripping open her skin to go on the defensive, ready to protect her. Shino's bugs buzzed angrily in response, ready to attack at a moments notice. Shino's face was only an inch from hers, and his breath was hot on her face. It smelt of vegetables, clean and fresh and somehow green.

Neither of them spoke. Hitomi's breath came in short bursts, her muscles trembling, ready to explode into action and knock Shino away. Some of the larger fighting spiders raised their front legs, ready to pounce.

Suddenly Hitomi was acutely aware of one of her wolf spiders, legs raised, millimetres away from a buzzing hornet with a large sting. So close…so close…

The air from the hornet's wings touched the stiff hairs on the wolf spider's legs, and that was it. At the same instant, they attacked, and both Hitomi and Shino snapped their heads to the side to order their respective creatures to stop, which they did. Both would die – the hornet's sting was embedded in the wolf spider's abdomen, and the fly sported a poisonous bite, courtesy of the spider.

Both ninja sighed and turned their heads back to face each other...and froze. Their faces no longer had an inch between them – their foreheads knocked together gently, and Hitomi felt Shino's nose against hers, his lips a mere centimetre away…

The desire to kiss him was suddenly overwhelming, and Hitomi moved forward just as Shino pulled himself to his knees, drawing back. A look of shock passed over his face as he realised that she had made to kiss him, and he paused, his bugs swirling in agitation. But Hitomi made no further movement, and he got to his feet instead, his bugs crawling into his collar, back under his skin.

Hitomi got up slowly, her spiders scurrying back to her, also returning to the inside of her body. When she peeked at Shino out the corner of her eye, she saw he was watching her, and blushed.

"Jiro's gone to find a campsite." She whispered, swallowing the lump in her throat. Shino nodded silently. "Uhh…" Hitomi cringed at the awkwardness of the situation, and a large spider ran from her sleeve to her hands, which she placed over and over each other, the spider constantly running on them. It was a nervous habit she had.

Shino stared for a minute at the spider's many legs moving in perfect synchronisation, scampering over Hitomi's palms, seemingly trying to escape, though he knew it was only responding to her need. She had nearly kissed him; his brain was still processing the realisation. _Him_.

His sister, Sumiko, often told him that he was good-looking, and it was a crime to hide his face away. He ignored her. What was the point, he asked himself, when it wouldn't matter?

Kiba said Shino would've had girls a-plenty were it not for his bugs. They creeped people out majorly, especially women.

Shino hadn't really cared all that much. It wasn't like he needed a girlfriend to complete himself. He was fine on his own, always had been. Which was why he was having a hard time understanding why Hitomi had made the move to kiss him. They had only just met that morning!

As always, his brain raced through a dozen or more things he could say. At the forefront was "Why?" but he didn't want to ask. He preferred to avoid situations like this altogether. Shinobi should never put themselves at emotional risk – it complicated things. So he decided on a different topic completely.

"We should find Jiro."

"Yeah." Hitomi agreed, obviously relieved. The spider in her hands ran back under her sleeve and disappeared. Shino found himself wondering if she had a permanent exit hole under there, and berated himself. What did it matter? "He went this way." Hitomi said, pointing away into the trees. Shino nodded and they began to walk, an uncomfortable distance between them.

Hitomi loosed several of her spiders to sense which way Jiro had gone, biting her lip to keep from smiling as Shino did the same with his bugs. Ever the gentleman, he withdrew his troops first so that they wouldn't have to skirt around each other.

Hitomi's trackers easily picked up the traces Jiro had left behind and she led the way to a small, dry clearing. Jiro had pinned a scrap of his shirt to a tree with a kunai to show that he'd chosen this as the campsite. "He's probably collecting firewood." Hitomi mumbled to herself.

"Correct!" Jiro appeared behind her, his arms full of sticks and his pockets bulging with dry leaves and small twigs. "Here we go now." He grinned, setting down his materials in the centre of the clearing and arranging the dry leaves and twigs with practised ease before pulling out a small bundle of cloth from a pocket.

"You keep fire on you?" Hitomi said with surprise.

"Sure." Jiro grinned wolfishly. "I _like_ fire." So saying, he took a small pinch of the glowing cinders and laid them on the pile of leaves. Cupping his hands around it, he blew gently, ignoring the tiny sparks that flew up into his face. Surprisingly quickly, small flames began to lick hungrily at the kindling. Jiro smiled. "That's right…" He murmured, taking some twigs and laying them across the top. "Feed…"

Hitomi and Shino turned to each other and raised their eyebrows before turning back to Jiro who was feeding the small flames bigger twigs, still blowing, harder now. The fire grew quickly and Jiro smiled in satisfaction and pride as he sat back to survey the glowing, flickering campfire, the perfect shape and size for a spit to hang at a comfortable height above it.

"I'll go hunting." Shino said, turning away.

"Bring back a stupid adder so we can get the hell out of here!" Jiro called after him. He rolled his eyes when Shino didn't reply and turned back to Hitomi. "Are all Aburame like that?"

"How should I know?" She scoffed. "They all wear dark glasses and cover themselves up, if that's what you mean."

"I know they all wear glasses and cover themselves up!" Jiro snapped. "But are they always so…so…" He gestured, searching for the word. "Antisocial!" He snapped his fingers triumphantly. "Are they all so antisocial?"

"I don't know." Hitomi shrugged. "I only just met him, and I don't know any more Aburame's."

"Does your clan act like that?" Jiro asked.

"No…" Hitomi frowned. "Why would they?"

"Well you're both bug-users." Jiro shrugged. "I figured it would run in the family."

"You idiot!" Hitomi snapped. He was really making her angry. She hated it when people mistook spiders for insects. "Spiders are arachnids! Can't you count? They have eight legs, not six!"

"Well excuse me!" Jiro snarled back. "Bugs and spiders look the same, act the same, feel the same when they bite you, and creep people out the same!" He was shouting now. "You don't have to get all offensive 'cos you're both freaks!"

"We are not freaks!" Hitomi screamed. "What would you know about it? You have no idea you ignorant _baka_!"

Unseen, Shino watched from the trees a little way away, having just returned from his hunting trip. It was easy for his bugs to simply swarm down a rabbit hole and strangle two of its occupants. They hung from his hand, the soft fur of their ears still warm. He would definitely stay out of this. There was no way he was getting involved in a petty squabble.

"What do you expect!" Jiro shouted at Hitomi. "It's not like you tell anyone anything!"

"It's because of people like you, Tanuke Jiro," Hitomi snarled. "You would always put us down! Vulnerability is not something any shinobi is going to be open to, let alone shinobi from clans like the Hiragana!"

"What makes you so special?" Jiro's face twisted. "You think you're better than the rest of us? You were always like that at school. High and mighty Hitomi," He made a girly pose. "Too good to play with us, to even talk to us!"

"You turned them against me!" Hitomi shrieked. "It was your fault I was miserable and alone! You told everyone I hid my skin in shame cos I was a traitor, like my entire clan!"

"Like you don't do it to feel special!" Jiro sneered. "Like it's anything more than an ego-trip."

"How would you know?" She screamed, spiders trickling from holes in her leggings to pool around her feet, and crawling up to perch in her dreadlocks. "You don't know anything!"

"I know it's a mask!" Jiro wasn't fazed by the arachnids. "To hide how you know you're really pathetic! You and that Aburame freak too!"

In the darkness, Shino clenched his fists.

In the clearing, Hitomi seemed at a loss for words. She gaped in wordless fury, her spiders making the leaves rustle around her feet. "You…" Her eyes sparked and she screamed in fury, whipping a kunai from her pouch and diving at Jiro, who pulled out three shuriken and crouched defensively.

Hitomi was blinded by hate, and swung wide, giving Jiro plenty of room to dodge aside and throw his shuriken. She swerved out of the way and they flew into the trees. Shino, watching, caught them easily.

Both combatants pulled out kunai and clashed, the hardened iron grinding and sparking. Jiro had more muscle, but was smaller than Hitomi. In a test of strength such as this, it was going to be stamina that decided the outcome.

Abruptly, Jiro pulled back and swerved on his toes to the side. Hitomi lost balance and lurched forward, a look of surprise on her face. As she fell, Jiro flashed his kunai forward in a traditional strike Shino recognised as the _snake_, named so because it mimicked the snake's lightning-quick strike.

Hitomi understood what Jiro was about to do and lifted her right leg so she fell in that direction instead. Instead of slicing Hitomi's shoulder open to the bone as the _snake_ should have done, the kunai cut only the skin, though it would leave Hitomi's sleeve open for Jiro to see her arm beneath.

Shino's breath caught in his lungs as he realised this and he ran forward at an unnatural speed, appearing between Jiro and the fallen Hitomi, his arms out, his bugs swarming around them threateningly.

Jiro's eyes opened wide and he took a step back. Shino could have that effect on people. "I was planning to let you exhaust yourselves." He said in his distinctive deep voice. "Why? Because even though you would have slowed down the search for the forest adder, the fight would have been out of you, and that would have made this mission easier."

Jiro frowned at Shino's strange way of talking and stepped back, wiping his kunai on a small rag before stowing it away in his pouch. Shino stretched out his hand and dropped the three shuriken he had caught at the younger boy's feet. "There are two rabbits behind you." He said, not looking at Jiro, which somehow made him even more imposing. "Roast them. We'll be back in a minute." He turned and helped Hitomi to her feet. She was clutching her ripped sleeve together to hide her skin, her eyes wide and her shoulders shaking. Her spiders were gone.

Jiro turned to pick up the two rabbits, but stopped as Shino spoke again.

"Hitomi was right. You don't understand anything about us." So saying, he walked away, his hand wrapped protectively around Hitomi's shoulders.


	2. Chapter 2

Hitomi took a deep breath

Hitomi took a deep breath. Then another. She closed her eyes for a moment and heard the rush of a waterfall. It grew louder, and she realised that the river was their destination.

Shino led her to a large, flat rock that jutted out slightly over the plunge pool the huge wall of water created. "Show me." He said quietly. Hitomi's eyes widened, then narrowed. She leaned away slightly and hugged her cut arm close to her body, using the folds of material that made up the makeshift wings to cover it up.

"You can't treat it properly on your own." Shino said, his face turned away slightly. It seemed to be a habit of his. "It could get infected, and you would fall ill." He turned his head to look directly at her, and the effect shocked her. "I will not judge."

The breath caught in her throat. _I will not judge_…the old words from her clan, proclaiming themselves as trustworthy from one member to another.

"I don't know anything about the Aburame really." She admitted slowly. "But…" She bit her lip, unsure. "Are you…your bugs, do they…" She halted.

In answer, Shino did something he had never done for anyone, not even his team or his sensei. He rolled up the sleeve of his jacket.

Hitomi gasped silently. She knew how important the covering of one's skin was in her own clan, and all evidence she had seen so far had indicated that it was the same for the Aburame. Her theory was proved true by the skin on Shino's arm.

Scars. Some faded and white, others fresh and shiny and dark pink. On the top and bottom of his forearm, too high up to be really called a wrist, were two small dark holes, where she knew the bugs that resided within him lay in wait.

Hitomi gulped and nodded as Shino rolled his sleeve down again, holding out her arm to be treated.

The Aburame took it with infinite care and rolled up her sleeve in kind, exposing her own silvery scars. She couldn't see the question in his eyes, but she could see it in the tilt of his head and the posture of his body.

"One particular breed of spider," She explained. "Very rare, has a natural chemical in its silk that heals any wounds made by my spiders quickly. The silk turns them that colour." She nodded towards her arm, where one scar in particular seemed to have caught Shino's attention.

It was long and wide, covering the area from just above her elbow to just above the inside of her wrist. His fingers stroked its surface, memorising the texture. "Why did you need to release so many, so fast?" He asked quietly.

"It was one of our missions." Hitomi explained. "The feudal lord who requested it couldn't afford the protection he needed, and so he put a spin on the truth, making out that the enemy ninja who were trying to kill him…didn't exist." She smiled sardonically. "You can only imagine how well that went."

"Did you drive the enemy ninja away?"

"Yes, but it took a while to recover. Akihiro was very badly injured. Kunai-stabs all over the place."

"How long did this take to heal?" Shino's fingers stills stroked it, the mother-of-pearl texture and colour drawing him.

"Uh…" The stroking was distracting Hitomi. She shook her head to clear it. "About twenty-four hours. It bled a lot, but my spiders drank it to make sure no one saw and tried to treat me."

"Smart." Shino muttered.

"Yeah." Hitomi closed her eyes. She felt like she was being hypnotised. The feeling dissolved when Shino's fingers left her scar and rolled her sleeve up higher, revealing the long bleeding line where Jiro's kunai had sliced the skin.

"Your spiders won't heal this?" Shino didn't look up from it.

"No," Hitomi shook her head. "They can only heal wounds they create. A shame really." Not that she minded at the moment.

Yah! What? Her eyes bugged slightly as she realised what she'd just thought, and she inwardly scowled. Great. Not only had she nearly kissed him earlier, here she was having gooey thoughts about him treating her wound.

Shino held her arm delicately in one hand that Hitomi realised was much larger than either of hers, while reaching into his kunai pouch and pulling out antiseptic cream, cotton wool and bandages with his other.

"This will sting." He warned, holding the cotton wool out to the spray of the waterfall to wet it so that he could clean the cut.

Hitomi shrugged. "Not as much as getting it did."

Shino just nodded and lowered his hand to her arm, gently swabbing along the cut and cleaning away any small particles of dirt that might have stuck there. Although it did sting a little at first, Hitomi felt something in her chest, under her collarbone and above her heart. It made it hard to swallow and breathe properly.

Shino looked up at her suddenly. "There is a better way to clean it. One that ensures that there will be no infection."

"How?" Hitomi asked, curious.

Shino did not look away, but she sensed his reluctance to tell her. "My kikai bugs…" he began slowly. "They can clean wounds much better than cotton wool…but if you don't want to…"

"No," Hitomi smiled. "Do it. I'd like to see." And to feel, she added silently.

Shino still didn't smile, but his nod wasn't as stiff as his body had been. He held his outstretched fingers over the cut, and Hitomi watched in fascination as tiny kikai bugs swarmed over his skin. She imagined it would feel the way small garden or house spiders felt on hers.

A bug raised its tiny iridescent wings and flew down to hover over her skin. Shino looked at her, giving her a last chance to back out. Hitomi met his eyes (or sunglasses) and meaningfully brought her arm up to meet the bug. This time Shino did smile, Hitomi could tell by the raised cheeks. It was the first time he had smiled on the mission, and Hitomi was so delighted she smiled back.

One by one, Shino's kikai bugs jumped down to run along the skin either side of her cut and did whatever they were doing to clean it. They tickled, but in a different way to her spiders. A normal person, she knew, wouldn't have been able to distinguish between them, but for her the difference was blatantly obvious. She could tell that the bugs were foreign, and were six-legged, not eight. They felt…colder. Smoother.

She frowned, unsure of how to describe it, and Shino's head moved ever so slightly. She knew he wanted to know whether she wanted his bugs off her and spoke hastily to reassure him.

"It's not that." She smiled. "It's just…they feel different, y'know? I was thinking colder, but that doesn't seem like the right word." She frowned.

Shino tilted his head again, considering what it would be like to have spiders on his skin. Very different, he concluded, but he couldn't be sure till he tried. Still, he hesitated to ask.

Hitomi smiled, guessing his thoughts, and held out her other hand, small spiders running over it, an invitation.

Shino had no idea how she'd read his thoughts like that, but he accepted her unspoken invitation anyway, bringing his hand up to hers. Their fingertips touched, but the spiders didn't move until Shino and Hitomi' hands were securely linked. Then they crossed over, seemingly hesitant.

Through Shino's glasses, they looked purple, and as he looked closer he realised that they were all the same type. The first brush of one of their legs on his skin almost made him jerk away. They felt rough and hairy compared to his bugs' hard, smooth counterparts.

They moved across to him, just a few, and ran around, not going down his sleeve. His kikai bugs buzzed in agitation, wanting to drive away the invaders, but with a little effort he held them in check.

Hitomi noticed the slight frown and cocked her head. "Shall I…?" A few spiders crossed from his hand back to hers. Shino shook his head. "My kikai bugs…they want to drive the spiders away. Why? They believe they are invaders."

"Why do you do that?" Hitomi, though she didn't know it, was looking straight into his eyes.

"Huh?" Shino stared back. "Do what?"

"Ask yourself the question before answering it for other's benefits."

Shino frowned slightly. "I don't know. I just do it."

"Hm." Hitomi smiled. "Unique."

Shino smiled slightly. Kiba had once asked him the same question, but had thought it 'weird' instead of 'unique'. He liked 'unique' better.

The kikai bugs soon finished cleaning Hitomi's wound, and bugs and spiders crossed to their respective owners so that Shino could apply the cream and bandages.

"Your spiders," He began suddenly. "The ones that were on me…they were all the same type, correct?"

"Yeah." Hitomi smiled. "They were my kikai spiders."

"I've been wondering about that." Shino said, his eyes on Hitomi's arm as he wrapped the bandages around it. "Many types of spiders inhabit you, not only kikai. How is that possible?"

"The Hiragana have a pact with all spiders," Hitomi explained. "Not just the kikai. We protect them, as many as we can. We provide homes for them too – we own a few meadows and a small portion of the woods surrounding them. No one is allowed there but us, and we know how not to disturb them."

Shino nodded. "I see. With bugs it is different – some live in hives or colonies, some are solitary. It would be difficult to provide for all."

"Yeah, I wondered about that." Hitomi pursed her lips. "Spiders are solitary, tolerating others, but only if they don't annoy each other. Most are very patient, and only a few hunt like animals."

Shino nodded, storing the information away as he tied the bandage. "Done."

"Thank you." Hitomi smiled at him shyly. "Hang on though…" She reached into her kunai pouch and pulled out a tiny sewing pack. "It won't take a second." She assured him confidently, threading the needle and pulling it through her sleeve with surprising speed and grace. She was done in just over a minute, and the material only looked like it had been ripped if one knew where to look.

"You are skilled." Shino nodded, holding out his hand to help her to her feet.

"Yeah." Hitomi smiled and blushed. "Spider thing. We're all good at sewing and making clothes and stuff in my family. I've repaired this more times than I can count."

Shino didn't say anything as he pulled her up and they walked slowly back to the camp, and Jiro.

The boy was sulky, turning the spit so the rabbits were roasted evenly. He looked up when they walked into the clearing and muttered something under his breath.

"What was that?" Hitomi asked sharply.

"M'sorry." He muttered, only marginally louder.

"You're sorry?" Hitomi nodded to herself, and then suddenly she was behind Jiro, a kunai pressed to his throat. She waited for a long, drawn-out moment, Jiro biting his lips and trying not to breathe too hard in case the motion caused his neck to be sliced open like the rabbits he cut up, spitted over the fire he lovingly created.

Shino didn't move. He knew Hitomi wouldn't hurt Jiro – she just wanted to teach him a lesson.

"You're sorry?" Hitomi hissed dangerously into Jiro's ear.

Jiro gulped. "I'd nod weakly," He said, "But I'm afraid that could result in my bloody death."

"But you're sorry?" Hitomi pressed.

"Yes!" Jiro said. "Yes!"

"Well good." Hitomi removed the kunai and took a step back, smiling when Jiro turned around to stare at her. "Because so am I."

They nodded at each other, not friends, but not enemies either.

Shino sat down by the fire, breaking the mood. "Are the rabbits done yet?"

"Uh…" Jiro turned back to the fire. "Nearly. Actually," He examined one, the heat of the flames not seeming to bother him, "They look about done now."

They ate and Hitomi and Shino went to sleep since Jiro had offered to take first watch. Hitomi didn't need sleeping packs or blankets – the extra material stretching from her wrists to her waist wrapped around her and kept her warm. Shino didn't have blankets either, she saw. That coat of his seemed to keep him warm just fine. He didn't take off his sunglasses either, she noticed. He slept on his back, not making a move. I was impossible to tell whether he was awake or asleep.

Jiro woke her up for the second stretch, and she pinched herself to stay awake, practising her chakra control with her spiders, making them do all sorts of tricks to pass the time.

When the time came for Shino to take over, she walked over and knelt beside him hesitantly. He seemed to be asleep – he didn't move, even when she accidentally brushed his coat. She found herself studying him. From this angle, his whole face was visible, and she realised that he was _unfeasibly_ good looking. Beautiful, almost. As much as a guy could be. It seemed almost a shame to wake him. But wake him she had to.

"Shino." She whispered, touching his collar, not quite daring to touch his face. "Shino, it's your turn for watch." His head shifted slightly, turning towards her, and she blushed and shuffled backwards. "See you in the morning."

He nodded and got up, going to sit by the edge of the clearing, stirring the dying embers of the fire and putting a couple more branches on it.

Hitomi fell asleep watching his silhouetted figure, practising with his bugs as she had done with her spiders.

She woke to Jiro poking her with a long stick. "Up you get." He grinned. "Let's find us a cobra."

"Forest adder." She corrected in a mumble.

"Whatever." Jiro waved an arm. "Eat your leftovers."

"Yummy." Hitomi rubbed the sleep-grit away from her eyes and sneezed a couple of times.

"You okay?" Jiro looked at her in alarm.

"Oh yeah," Hitomi laughed. "I always sneeze at least twice in the mornings."

"Weird." Jiro shook his head and turned away pulling a couple of strips off the chunk of rabbit he was holding.

Hitomi ignored him and ate her rabbit leftovers in a bleary haze.

Shino finished first. "Hitomi."

"Huh?" She looked up. "Hm?

"How much of your area do you have left to search?"

"About a third, I think." She frowned.

"Then we should –"

"…_team one reporting to all other teams…teams two, three and four report in if you can hear us…"_

Shino touched a pale finger to his ear. "Team four reporting in."

"…_okay team four, found anything?..."_

"Nothing yet." Shino replied.

"…_yo, team three is on the frequency…"_ Kiba's distinctive laugh rang through the earpieces. _"…and we got ourselves an adder! We think so anyway…"_

"…_well does it fit the description?..."_ Kurenai asked, her voice fuzzy, coming over a long distance.

"…_yeah, but we're not sure if it's a male or a female. How do you tell?..."_

"Kiba." Shino said. "Look at the tail. Does it taper to a fine point?"

"…_uh…hang on………uh…nope…no tapering here…"_

"Then it's a female." Shino told him.

"Great!" Jiro whispered. "We only have to find a male now!"

"…_alright…it would seem that team two is out of range…"_ Kurenai told them. _"…but search only for the male forest adder from now on…as team four said…if the tail tapers to a fine point it's a male…if not…female…we all clear?..."_

"Clear." Shino said. "Team four out." He turned to Jiro and Hitomi and nodded. "Let's go."

"Uh…this might sound like a stupid question," Jiro raised his hand. "But where? You going to do that thing you did yesterday?"

"No." Shino said. "Even if Hitomi and I completed the areas we were searching yesterday, there is a possibility that the adder will have moved into the areas we have already searched."

"So how will we find it this time?" Jiro asked.

"The traditional way." Shino shoved his hands in his pockets. "Look." He walked past them and Jiro scowled. "The forest adder likes hollow trees, logs, stones and roots to hide in or beneath. We'll look out for those in particular. But be careful not to get bitten if you do find one."

"So where do we start?" Hitomi asked as Shino leapt up into the tree branches.

"Where we did yesterday." Shino told her. "We'll spread out into the area I searched first, go to the edges, then search again as we return. Then we'll do the same with the other area."

"Right." Hitomi nodded. "It's not far from here. Hurry up, Jiro!" She shouted over her shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah." Jiro stuck out his tongue as he landed on the branch next to them. "Just getting my fire."

"Uh…right." Hitomi nodded. "Of course." And he called her weird?

They searched the first area twice with a few hours to spare before sunset, and at a silent decision, all three decided to start searching the second area and camp wherever they ended up. They only had a day left. Someone could have already died from an adder bite. It was unlikely, but still possible.

The night came, and this time Hitomi insisted on having first watch. It was easier to stay up, she knew, than be woken and have to keep pinching herself in the dead hours of the morning, and be crabby and tired when she woke.

To be fair, she spent most of her watch watching not the perimeter, but Shino. She knew it was bad, but she didn't care. It wasn't like she'd ever see him again after this mission – she might as well memorize his face while she could, because she knew she had a crush on him. She had thought about it, and matched up her symptoms with the heroines in the books her mother read, and was certain that she had a crush on Aburame Shino.

But hey, it wasn't like she was going to act on it, so she was going to moon over him while he was locked in the comfortable oblivion of sleep instead. When the time came for Shino to take over, Hitomi was even more reluctant than last night to wake him.

Once again, she didn't dare touch his face, though she ached to do so. Instead, she touched his collar as she had the time before. "Shino…it's your turn." As she curled up by the fire, she wondered if he had noticed the slight depression in the dirt where she had been kneeling for the better part of her watch. She hoped not.

As she slept, she dreamt of rain. Not the heavy sleety stuff that battered down crops and damaged property, and not the soft drizzle that coated everything in damp either, but the rain that came from thick black clouds. Not hard enough to hurt, and not soft enough to make umbrellas not worth putting up. The sort of rain that got people drenched from head to toe in seconds flat. The sort that sounded comforting when you were safe inside, cosy and warm. The sort that came at night and had gone by morning, leaving everything wet and dripping, but with the promise of sun to make everything dry and warm again. Hitomi dreamed of it, the sound and the feel of it, and was woken by a yell.

More specifically; Jiro's yell.

She started awake to find Shino and Jiro frozen in place. "Don't move!" Shino warned. "Not a muscle." His face, what little she could see of it in the light of the embers from the fire, looked slightly panicked.

"What's wrong?" She began to ask, but only got to the "What's –" before she felt a weight on her leg, moving slowly up her body. She didn't feel legs, and she knew why. All the time they'd looked for the forest adder, and now the forest adder had found them. Or more specifically; her.

"Oh crap…" She breathed. What to do? What to do? Her spiders were no match for the snake's speed and accuracy! And they were small – even the biggest of them were too small to face this adder and hope to prevent it from killing her. But if it was distracted…

"Jiro! Shino!" She breathed lightly. "Distract it enough for me to get a spider to attack. Hurry!"

"Distract?" Jiro took a step forward and the adder reared up, opening its mouth wide to show large fangs and a flickering black tongue. "No problem. Now you hurry."

"Right." Hitomi agreed. A trio of spitting spiders dashed out and attacked faster than Jiro could see. The adder saw the movement and turned, hissing dangerously, but suddenly it reared back, waving its head from side to side frantically. "GETITGETITGETITGETITGETIT!!" Hitomi shrieked.

Shino leapt forward and snatched the snake up by the neck, jabbing the needle with the sedative into its body, holding it at arm's length while it thrashed and writhed, and finally became still.

"We got it?" Jiro was disbelieving. "Please tell me it's a male!"

Shino tilted his head to look at the tail. "It's a male."

Jiro let out an excited screech. "YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!" He screamed, punching a hand in the air. "I'M GOING HOME!!"

"If you don't shut up, it'll be your corpse we deliver to the door." Hitomi rubbed her ears. Jiro stuck his tongue out at her, but quietened down.

They had just settled back down to go to sleep, Jiro taking his turn on watch, when he suddenly spoke. "Hey Shino, didn't you notice the snake?"

"Obviously not." Shino spoke slowly, as if talking to an incompetent fool. Which wasn't exactly far off the mark where Jiro was concerned.

"Hmph." Jiro sniffed, turning away. "Well excuse me."

In the morning, team two was the first to radio in. They too had caught an adder, a female. Everyone was pleased not to have to spend another day in the forest, and they agreed to meet up in the clearing near the lake where Shino, Kiba and Hinata usually trained.

Kurenai praised them all when they arrived, and gave all the snakes to Kazuki-sensei, who calmed them easier than a sedative could have done. Something to do with his forest blood. Hitomi would have sworn blind he bled green, the forest was such a huge part of him.

Before she knew it, Akihiro and Masaki were ribbing each other as they waited for Tsunade-sama to call them in. It felt so strange – in just over two days, she already felt like Shino and Jiro were her team, even though she'd been in a team with Akihiro and Masaki for over a year now, and they'd done many missions together. She felt sad to be going back to her old life.

Tsunade-sama praised them greatly for getting three forest adders and proceeded to give them all the rest of the day off. Kazuki-sensei promptly disappeared to melt into his beloved forest, and Akihiro and Masaki decided to have a day of racing to see of trekking through the Konoha forest had developed their leg muscles.

"Judge for us, Hitomi!" Akihiro begged once they were outside. "Please?"

"Nah." Hitomi waved him off. "Not today. I have…things to do."

"We don't have any training." Masaki frowned. "What sort of things?"

"Spider things." She told them, turning and walking away before they could try and persuade her into judging their races.

Her father was back, with a new scar to add to his large collection. This one was down his left cheek. If anything it made him look rugged and handsome. That's what he insisted, anyway. Her sister, Satsu, said that it looked like he'd had a run-in with one of their mother's kitchen knives.

Hitomi had gone through the motions of grinning and teasing her father, hugging her mother and regaling them all with the success of her latest mission, though admittedly she didn't do much but be attractive to the adder as a meal option.

She had escaped at the earliest opportunity to the woods bordering the Hiragana spider meadows and sat in her secret place, a tiny waterfall and stream, bubbling happily along. There was a small stone bridge of sorts over the top of the tiny waterfall, and Hitomi sat on it, swinging her bare feet back and forth into the cold water, dissecting her feelings for Shino.

By the time it was dark and her father sent one of his larger kikai spiders to find her, she had come to no conclusion, and she sighed as she followed the kikai spider back to their house. There was no point anyway, she thought as she lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling. She would never see Shino again – they were on totally different levels. But maybe that was it! Maybe she could work really hard to become an excellent shinobi – the chuunin exams were coming up soon, and if she worked herself and her team mates really hard, Kazuki-sensei might enter them!

She fell asleep with a smile on her face, because even though she knew the course of action she had decided to take was really quite pathetic, she didn't care, and either way, getting to chuunin rank would be an incredible achievement.

The next day she was up early and running laps around the training ground before even Kazuki-sensei got there. Later that day, she took Akihiro and Masaki aside and explained her change of attitude to them.

"Guys, when you were with Kiba and Hinata, did you see how skilled they were?"

"Well," Akihiro scratched his head, "Kiba was a bit of a goof, but yeah, he was amazing. Even his ninken, Akamaru. They were an incredible team. You could tell they would win in a brute-force fight."

"Hinata looked like a wallflower who wouldn't harm a fly," Masaki said, "But when we got attacked by a bear, she fought it off single-handedly. Even I couldn't do that."

"Exactly." Hitomi nodded, her eyes bright. "And Shino was just as awesome. I was thinking – the chuunin exams are coming up soon, and…"

"No way." Akihiro stared at her like she'd just grown an extra head. "Are you insane? We are nowhere near ready for something like then chuunin exams. Shinobi die in the exams!"

"But we're strong as it is," Hitomi looked at them, "And I know that of we work really, really hard, we can prove to Kazuki-sensei that we deserve to be entered. I want to be a chuunin, I want to prove that I can be an excellent shinobi. What do you guys say?" Her eyes were wide and pleading, and the boys looked at each other before turning back to her, their answers written on their faces. Hitomi squealed and jumped up and down before pulling them both into a bone-breaking hug.

"Can't…breathe…" Gasped Akihiro.

"Sorry." Hitomi laughed and released them. "Let's get training! We have a ton of work to do if we want to get in!"

Over the next month, team Kazuki trained like they were fighting for their lives. They seemed possessed, and Kazuki was undeniably impressed, and recommended to all the other jonin teachers that they send their students on missions with older, more experienced chuunin and genin.

Meanwhile, Hitomi, Akihiro and Masaki fought each other viciously in sparring matches, ran harder than ever before when they were doing races or laps, completed more exercises than Kazuki could set for them, and became stronger than any other team in their graduation year. The missions they did moved from D-rank to C-rank and they even completed two B-ranks. It was unheard of, but they handled it perfectly, taking it all on their stride.

So when his three students approached him and revealed their motivation – to compete in the chuunin exams, Kazuki had only small objections, and caved easily to their persuasion.

In the month and a half it took for the chuunin exams to finish, only Hitomi made it to the rank of chuunin out of their team. If Akihiro or Masaki were bitter or jealous, they didn't show it, and congratulated her heartily instead.

Hitomi though, was exhausted. Her body felt like it was full of lead instead of spiders. She was not designed to take this much, and she was buckling under the pressure. In the final rounds, she had been matched against a rain ninja who had locked her in a complex genjutsu, bringing up her deepest, darkest secrets and desires and driving her to such extremes she nearly killed herself.

Luckily, her spiders hadn't been affected by the illusions, and had followed her last command to them before she was trapped – _get the enemy ninja. Kill only if you must, but try to knock him out_. They had followed her commands. Since the rain ninja had been so focused on his genjutsu, he hadn't noticed the spiders swarming behind him, and by the time he had, it was too late.

But the battle had sucked the last bit of fight out of her, and she was spent. Totally spent. She could barely find the energy to walk to the meadows and back. But when Masaki told her about the house party a group of shinobi were having, the possibility of Shino being there was too much to resist, and she agreed so fast it made Masaki's head spin.

So it was on the night of the party, life found Hiragana Hitomi smiling and laughing and drinking cheap beer out of cheap cardboard cups, seemingly involved in the conversation, but really distracted, her black eyes flitting all over the place, searching for a certain Aburame while rain poured down outside, the sort that drenched you in seconds flat, not damaging and not drizzly, but somewhere in between.

She had just set down her beer and was standing on tiptoe to peer over the crowd when she felt a hand tap her shoulder. Her spider senses tingled and she fell back into her heels, not turning around in case it turned out to be a trick.

"Looking for someone?"

No trick! There was no mistaking that deep voice. Hitomi turned with a smile on her face. "Shino!" The feeling was back – the feeling that there was something in her chest, below her collarbone and above her heart, making it hard to breathe.

He nodded, his expression beneath glasses and collar unfathomable. "I heard you made chuunin." He said. "Congratulations."

"Thank you." Hitomi smiled. "It…took a lot out of me. A hell of a lot."

Shino didn't say anything, but tilted his head as if listening to some sound only he could hear. "A hell of a lot." He repeated slowly. "You're right. You look…tired."

Hitomi let her façade drop – her shoulders slumped and her smile slipped off. "Tired doesn't even begin to cover it." She sighed. "I feel like I can barely move."

Shino opened his mouth like he was about to say something – he frowned as if he was struggling with it, and was about to speak when Kiba appeared at his elbow, Akamaru perched on his head.

"Shino…dude…" He grinned stupidly. "You have got to see this. This random genin – he was on your team on that adder mission – he's doing this great impression of a girl who was trapped in a genjutsu at the chuunin exams. It's hilarious! Come on!" He dragged Shino by the arm over to the next room, where a stricken Hitomi could just hear Jiro's unmistakable tones squealing over the thumping music and the murmur of the crowd.

"Oh no! Please not that! Don't hurt them! I'll do anything!" He pretended to scream in girlish terror and there was a roar of laughter.

Hitomi's face flushed hot. She felt as if she was burning as Jiro's voice rose over the laughs. "Oh no!" Jiro screeched. "No needles! I'm terrified of needles! No! No!" The crowd howled with laughter, and those who had watched the exams (which was almost all of them), turned to point at Hitomi, frozen in mortification, and laugh even harder.

She couldn't take it anymore. She turned and fled, streaking out into the garden and into the rain where she could cry without anyone noticing. That was when the last dregs of her energy gave out and she fell to the hard flagstones, sobbing in abandon.

It wasn't fair! She had worked _so_ hard, pushing herself to her limit again and again, and for what? For Jiro to mock her and for everyone else to join in and laugh? Was that all her training and pain had led to? Humiliation and sorrow?

If she hadn't being crying in the rain, her face would definitely have been red and blotchy by now, but the cold water kept the blood cool, and she cried all the harder, the tears blinding her and burning her throat. She crawled to her knees, but couldn't find the strength to get up. She was drained, wasted in mind and body, and she hurt so much it felt like nothing would ever stop it. Her body ached, but the true pain came from the place where the feeling appeared when she saw Shino, and it consumed her entirely, and she knew that no matter how many tears she cried they could never quench the fire that was eating her alive from the inside out.

She was bent over, her fists clutching at the stone and her face turned down, crying so hard she didn't see or hear the footsteps till they were standing right in front of her. She began to raise her head, but found she simply didn't have the energy required, so she was surprised when two fingers touched her chin, helping her to tilt it upwards.

In the shadowy light spilling from the house, Hitomi recognised Shino, his collar unbuttoned and his face on show, and tears poured silently down her cheeks. Then, without a word, his head bent down and his mouth covered hers.

Kissing her.

Hitomi was so shocked she stopped crying. The kiss was cool, and soaking wet. Rivulets of rainwater ran down Shino's face, and Hitomi found energy enough to reach up a hand to stroke it, marvelling at its smoothness.

Shino tasted of rain, and his touch alone gave her the energy to stand up and pull herself closer to him, his big coat comforting as he wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace.

Hitomi had never been kissed before, and she wondered at how soft it was, how strange it felt to have a hot mouth but freezing cold and soaking lips moving with each other. It was amazing, but she broke away when she began to tremble with exhaustion again. Shino's arms were strong around her, and she felt herself relax into them, succumbing to the tiredness that had been building up for weeks.

Shino leaned down slightly and leaned his cheek against hers. Smooth, soft and cool. She sniffed into his coat, and buried her face in his collar, still up at the back. Her muscles were slowly giving way, and Shino realised just how far she had pushed herself. Swinging her up into his arms, he silently appraised her. She looked so thin and bedraggled, her clothes slick with rain and sticking to her slender frame. She looked so vulnerable, and Shino wanted to protect her forever.

Jiro was still lying in a pile on the floor when he walked back in, unable to move after Shino had beaten him to a bloody pulp when he realised who the obnoxious bastard was mocking. He gave him an extra kick as he went past, the moan of pain giving him immense pleasure.

He did not know whose house this was and he did not care. He just wanted to find a bed for Hitomi. It didn't take too long to find an empty room, and he gently lay Hitomi down in an armchair, bending down to wake her with a kiss.

When her eyes opened, Hitomi knew she had quite possibly died and gone to heaven. When she felt her spiders tickling her inside, she giggled inwardly and kissed Shino back, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling herself as close as she could.

He smiled and pushed her back onto the chair. "You need to sleep." He told her seriously. "And if you sleep in those wet clothes, you'll catch a cold. You need to change."

"Okay." Hitomi agreed blearily. "Whatever you say. But you'll have to change too – you can't sleep in that either." She nodded tiredly to his overlarge coat. "I'll change if you change."

"Very well." Shino nodded and got to his feet. "Will you be alright?" He asked, frowning at her wilting figure.

"Sure." Hitomi smiled, waving to the en suite bathroom. "You can change in there." Shino nodded and left. Hitomi hugged herself and squealed happily as quietly as she could. All the same, it took a while to drag herself out of her clothes and crawl over to the bed and get under the covers wearing her bra and pants.

"Are you ready?" Shino called through the door.

"Yeah." She called back sleepily, an eye on the door as it opened.

Shino wasn't wearing his coat or trousers – instead just a large t-shirt and boxers, though his glasses were still in place. His scars were visible all over his body, and he looked tense, as if waiting for Hitomi to screw up her face in disgust or sympathy, which was just as bad in his opinion. When she just smiled, he walked around to the other side of the double bed and got in, snapping the light off.

Hitomi could feel his warm chest against her back, and felt more relaxed and happy than she had ever felt before in her life. Shino's arm curled hesitantly over her bare belly and hugged her to him, relaxing when she simply snuggled closer.

"Do you…" His voice whispered deep into her ear. "Do you…mind…if I take off my glasses?"

"Why should I mind?" Hitomi asked sleepily with a gigantic yawn. "Why do you wear them?"

Shino hesitated, but answered anyway. "Aburame eyes…are very light sensitive. The light hurts. It burns."

"Unique." Hitomi murmured before falling asleep, and Shino smiled, breathing in, memorizing the smell of her hair after it had been drenched in rain. The sort of rain that drenched people in seconds flat and wasn't damaging or drizzly, but somewhere in between. The sort of rain that made people reveal their feelings and washed away fear and hesitation and painful secrets and replaced it with love.


End file.
